


Microcosm

by RestlessRiver



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Drabble Collection, One Shot, Other, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, introspective, post kh3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28824102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RestlessRiver/pseuds/RestlessRiver
Summary: Ienzo takes a moment to reflect on the growing pains of reformation, and how he fumbles to navigate with his new heart.
Kudos: 5





	Microcosm

**Author's Note:**

> Song of the day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06itMJgipEo
> 
> Please comment if you would like to.

Microcosm 

{a community, place, or situation regarded as encapsulating in miniature the characteristic qualities or features of something much larger.}

There is another us, so much less rare than one would originally think. You dip your toes into the concept when you live as many of my peers were forced to, plunged into the in between- the dusk and dawn that make you appreciate the day and fear the night. 

Between Heartless and Nobodies, there is something more ambiguous and I am not so sure it is even real. The other us does not seem to require some vast external tragedy to find birth into the world. Or...at least my own other required no such prerequisite. 

It was so incredibly easy to ignore him as a nobody- quite literally I could not begin to care. He niggled away at me and his existence rolled off of me like water off of a duck’s back. Most of the time at least.

As a human, every bone in his body pierced my tender new heart like a serrated rapier plunged into the capillaries of my fumbling weak existence. 

I see him in the mirrors at dark, like the hell witch craft in that old infernal world _ he _ used to send us to- save the size altering confections. 

He has an icy calm to him that Zexion would have envied should he have had the ability  _ to _ envy. 

This other, despite his  ability to feel emotion seemed to simply opt out of it. It was available to him should he want it, crave it- but his cravings seem to be few and far between. 

Only in the deepest of my plunges did he emote- and by hearts when he did! 

Fits! As if a nobody stole a heart that was not their own and forced the poor organ into their chest like some volatile vivisection- only for the tormented organ to retaliate against the very rib cage that had it trapped. 

Other than that, my other was the perfect gentleman I pretended to be by day. 

In the morning he judges me, or so I believe. Rarely will he talk. Simply put, he watches me in his mirror while I get ready for my day. The creature I envy so deeply. 

He is myself but made whole, where as I was so utterly empty when I looked back at him through that mirrored glass. 

His hair was perfect and raven in opposition to my own, dull and always in need of meticulous styling. His skin was clear and perfect, where mine was littered with scars I could not shake away in my reformation. He was free of the mole under my eye that I hid with my hair. His eyes were more piercing than my own, serious and sharp like that of an adult’s. When I look into my own, I still see a child trying to act beyond his years- and I am certain that is what the others see as well. 

My other, so painfully beautiful and clad all in black. He was born in the body he wanted to live in. I could see it by his throat on the rare occasion that his turtle neck shifted out of place. 

There, however, laid his fracture. Ever since my recompletion, I had be convinced that he was the perfect phantom of me- a me that had never lost his heart. 

Why then, was his neck ruined by the strangulation scars that destroyed my own? Was there then, another puppet that had slain him by another Axel’s command?

I’ve asked him this many times in my dreams, but he has never answered me. He was as mute as I had been after witnessing my parent’s downfall. To be completely transparent, I find this to be the only thing about my other that truely frightens me. His fits I can look past- I would be a hypocrite not to. I too had fallen to emotion behind closed doors when I no longer had to smile for the benefit of the people around me. 

In my dreams, he and I sit back to back on the surface of a chilly lake with water like labradorite. I look at him and he hardly lets me see his profile here, so I look at his reflection in the water instead. I speak. He listens, but he never answers. The only sounds from him are his even breath and the soft flipping of pages from my the lexicon in his lap- never actually reading any of the text. 

I am certain that anyone that reads this will think I am completely insane. 

Mad. Completely lost to reason. There is no place in this world for a scientist with a brain full of phantoms. 

I’ve accepted that, but I go on to write in private because I cannot bring myself to ignore my other and pretend that he does not exist deep in my skull. 

My other has been a consistency for me since the organization, even if I chose to ignore him in those days. His continued presence now is a source of solace for me albeit a grim one.. A painful one yes, but solace nonetheless. Reformation comes with countless growing pains.

How many years had I imagined it to be bliss? How many sleepless nights had Zexion spent watching still stars sleep frozen in the black sky, trying to remember what bliss  _ even felt like? _

At times there is joy in humanity yes, however I find myself longing for Zexion with hellish frequency. My other quells that craving for me so that I may stay whole. For that, I thank him dearly. 

  
  



End file.
